Deputy Caucus Chair Dafna Michaelson Jenet

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Dafna Michaelson Jenet represents House District 30, which stretches from northern Aurora to rural Adams County east of Denver International Airport and back into parts of Thornton and Commerce City, where she resides. During her second term, Rep. Michaelson Jenet is serving as deputy caucus chairwoman of the House Democrats. She also serves as vice chair of the Public Health Care and Human Services Committee and sits on the Education Committee.

In the 2017 session Rep. Michaelson Jenet focused her efforts on improving life for Colorado’s veterans, youth and Medicaid users. Bills of note that she sponsored included a bill to ensure that students could maintain access to their transcript and student records regardless of their financial status; a bill to crack down on Medicaid providers who try to trick their patients into paying bills they don’t owe, and a bill to make it easier for veterans to get college credit for training received during military service. She also sponsored a bill giving children as young as 12 the right to consent to confidential talk therapy, which will help to prevent the tragedy of youth suicide.

Prior to her election to the Colorado legislature, Rep. Michaelson Jenet’s career spanned two decades in leadership roles across the nonprofit sector. She served on the Adams County Youth Initiative community leader’s board, the Commerce City Quality Community Foundation, the Carson J. Spencer Foundation for suicide prevention, and Playworks Colorado. She has also served as a mentor for City Year Denver, Goodwill, and Junior Achievement, where she taught in a juvenile detention facility.

She is a graduate of Leadership Commerce City, a program of the Adams 14 Foundation, and an alumna of Leadership Denver. She also completed a Civil Rights Leadership Fellowship with the Anti-Defamation League.

In 2009 she traveled to all 50 states, one state each week for 52 weeks, in search of ordinary people doing extraordinary things to solve problems in their communities. She chronicled her experiences in “It Takes a Little Crazy to Make a Difference,” published by Motivational Press. The book won the social change category of the International Book Awards and earned her a place on Conversation Magazine’s “25 Women Changing the World” list and a mention in CNN’s Intriguing Person column.

Rep. Michaelson Jenet and her husband, Michael Jenet, co-founded and operate the Journey Institute, which works with schools, businesses, organizations and individuals to train in community problem solving and next-level team building.

She has an MBA from the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business and a bachelor’s degree from Yeshiva University’s Stern College for Women.

She and her husband have three children: Eytan and Gavriella Michaelson and Ryan Jenet, an active-duty U.S. Marine.